As I may have mentioned before, I spent part of the holiday break in Long Island for a family reunion of sorts. My Grandparents were up from Florida, which is generally an occasion worthy of bringing the family together in and of itself. It being Christmas time just sealed the deal.
There were quite a few family members present that I hadnt seen in years, including my now 10 year old cousin. The last time I saw him, he was 4. He now has a 4 year old brother, which sent me into weird freak out temporal shift mode. But can you really call it living if you don't experience freak out temporal shift mode at least once a year?
Inevitably, our conversations turned to what he had asked for for Christmas (Santa is a tough sell to plugged in kids). And much to my elation, two of his most desired gifts were Guitar Hero 3 and Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga, both for the Wii. I was jazzed. But just before I asked him if he wanted me to grab him a beer in preparation for a lengthy discussion, I was reminded of the fact that he was, in fact, still 10. And I am 25.
And at that moment I had this image of myself sitting on my couch playing Lego Star Wars while an condescending voice booms the phrase "what are you, like 10?" in a really smarmy tone. After shedding a single tear, I consume a Fruit Rolllup and drink some Ecto Cooler. <scene>
Thankfully, however, my little vision was fleeting, and was quickly replaced with a reality that required less self admonishment.
Some people might feel slightly awkward if there interests coincided with those of a 10 year old. Thankfully I'm not one of those people. Thats the product of being not quite right in the head, but also from the gaming industry building better games.
I think its exciting to see more titles with broad age range appeals - something I mentioned in my Rock Band post. Don't get me wrong - the majority of my favorite games are either too complicated or just flat out inappropriate for younger audiences, and I think that divide is good. But its nice that there are more and more gaming options that act like Pixar movies - appropriate for the little ones, with still enough appeal to older people to make them enjoyable. Lego Star Wars and Guitar Hero are both examples of that.
But short of looking for ways to justify my youthful spirits, why is this relevant?
I took some time yesterday to read through the "D is for Digital" report by Carly Shuler (pdf), which was recently released at the Consumer Electronics Show. The report is essentially an overview of digital media as it pertains to young children (pre-teen) and education, but it comes with a few interesting recommendations for educators, regulators, and industry groups.
But there was one recommendation that stuck out to me. To the quote mobile!
I'm reminded of a post that Cole made back in October regarding a Webkinz he had purchased for his daughter. In his words, "the stuff is so engaging I’ve actually caught another member of my family spending time working puzzles and answering trivia". Was the goal of the Webkinz designers to appeal to parents? I'm not sure. But when you make an activity that creates a multi-general appeal AND provides for learning opportunities, then you've struck edutainment gold.
Lego Star Wars is probably not what you'd consider educational, other than its problem solving elements. But its fun for a wide range of people, and if you ask me, thats a pretty good start. Though its no easy task to stack educational elements onto an entertaining game without disrupting the fun for either party, and yet add meaningful learning elements.
I'm almost envisioning a new era of the discussion activity - a fun game that, within the game play experience, raises some sort of thought provoking question which could generate a conversation between a parent and child playing together. Or perhaps a puzzle game with obstacles intentionally designed to be beyond a child's knowledge, enabling opportunities for parental help and incidental learning. Or maybe a game that encourages parents and children to collaborate to create some form of digital media...
Its all very nebulous in my head right now, but I'm fascinated by this idea of designing edutainment materials from the perspective of more than one person per screen at a time. And since it seems that most parents arent playing video games with their kids, there is no time like the present to start thinking about ways to build games that can be fun, educational, and broadly appealing all in one basket.
Images from wikipedia.com and esrb.org
There were quite a few family members present that I hadnt seen in years, including my now 10 year old cousin. The last time I saw him, he was 4. He now has a 4 year old brother, which sent me into weird freak out temporal shift mode. But can you really call it living if you don't experience freak out temporal shift mode at least once a year?
Inevitably, our conversations turned to what he had asked for for Christmas (Santa is a tough sell to plugged in kids). And much to my elation, two of his most desired gifts were Guitar Hero 3 and Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga, both for the Wii. I was jazzed. But just before I asked him if he wanted me to grab him a beer in preparation for a lengthy discussion, I was reminded of the fact that he was, in fact, still 10. And I am 25. And at that moment I had this image of myself sitting on my couch playing Lego Star Wars while an condescending voice booms the phrase "what are you, like 10?" in a really smarmy tone. After shedding a single tear, I consume a Fruit Rolllup and drink some Ecto Cooler. <scene>
Thankfully, however, my little vision was fleeting, and was quickly replaced with a reality that required less self admonishment.
Some people might feel slightly awkward if there interests coincided with those of a 10 year old. Thankfully I'm not one of those people. Thats the product of being not quite right in the head, but also from the gaming industry building better games.
I think its exciting to see more titles with broad age range appeals - something I mentioned in my Rock Band post. Don't get me wrong - the majority of my favorite games are either too complicated or just flat out inappropriate for younger audiences, and I think that divide is good. But its nice that there are more and more gaming options that act like Pixar movies - appropriate for the little ones, with still enough appeal to older people to make them enjoyable. Lego Star Wars and Guitar Hero are both examples of that.
But short of looking for ways to justify my youthful spirits, why is this relevant?
I took some time yesterday to read through the "D is for Digital" report by Carly Shuler (pdf), which was recently released at the Consumer Electronics Show. The report is essentially an overview of digital media as it pertains to young children (pre-teen) and education, but it comes with a few interesting recommendations for educators, regulators, and industry groups.
But there was one recommendation that stuck out to me. To the quote mobile!
"3. Break the traditional model of one child per screen in children's educational digital media. The bulk of educational digital media products now on the market assume one child sitting alone in front of a screen: however, better learning takes place when an adult is present to scaffold the child's learning experience. With product's that encourage group play, notably the Nintendo Wii, now achieving commercial success, this is an opportune time to develop educational digital media products that encourage intergenerational interaction".
I'm reminded of a post that Cole made back in October regarding a Webkinz he had purchased for his daughter. In his words, "the stuff is so engaging I’ve actually caught another member of my family spending time working puzzles and answering trivia". Was the goal of the Webkinz designers to appeal to parents? I'm not sure. But when you make an activity that creates a multi-general appeal AND provides for learning opportunities, then you've struck edutainment gold.
Lego Star Wars is probably not what you'd consider educational, other than its problem solving elements. But its fun for a wide range of people, and if you ask me, thats a pretty good start. Though its no easy task to stack educational elements onto an entertaining game without disrupting the fun for either party, and yet add meaningful learning elements.
I'm almost envisioning a new era of the discussion activity - a fun game that, within the game play experience, raises some sort of thought provoking question which could generate a conversation between a parent and child playing together. Or perhaps a puzzle game with obstacles intentionally designed to be beyond a child's knowledge, enabling opportunities for parental help and incidental learning. Or maybe a game that encourages parents and children to collaborate to create some form of digital media...
Its all very nebulous in my head right now, but I'm fascinated by this idea of designing edutainment materials from the perspective of more than one person per screen at a time. And since it seems that most parents arent playing video games with their kids, there is no time like the present to start thinking about ways to build games that can be fun, educational, and broadly appealing all in one basket.
Images from wikipedia.com and esrb.org
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